I was talking to a friend the other day and as always the conversation turned to music. He asked me what are you listening to lately (obviously he doesn’t read our column Drop The Needle on this site) and I told him I’ve started listening to Chicago a lot lately.
He looked at me and said “since when are you into elevator music?” I forget that a lot of younger people, including my friend only know Chicago from the 80’s syrupy version of the band that put out such songs like “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” and “Hard Habit To Break” and not the visionary band that came out in 1969 and blew our minds.
I remember going to my cousin Steve’s house who it seemed was always ahead of the curve when it came to music and picking up his copy of Chicago Transit Authority, looking at the liner notes and then putting it on the turntable. When “Introduction” started I almost turned it off but he said give it a minute, then Terry Kath started singing and my finger came off the needle. I mean the song was all over the place with it’s horn’s, Kath’s soulful voice, Seraphine’s manic drumming then the song just stops…period just stops then starts up again with some kind of smooth jazz style trumpet. I really didn’t know what the hell was happening. Then the pace starts up and it transitions into a kick ass solo by Kath, then the horns are back and near the end Terry is back singing then bam, done.
I’m sitting there trying to figure out WTF I just listened to when a piano solo starts up the next track seemingly going nowhere and I’m ready to leave, again Steve says give it a minute, then those damn horns come in but all of a sudden this amazing song starts coming out of the speakers. It’s a different voice than on the first track. “Does Anyone Know What Time It Is?” changed my perception of what this band was about. They were different and they knew it and didn’t give a shit. This track had Robert Lamm singing out of the right speaker while someone’s (Kath?) spoken word came out of the left speaker at the same time.
This was different, I was hooked.
What was amazing about that first album was not just the sonic chances they took but who ever heard of a debut album being a double album? Back then a single album might cost you $2.99 but a double album could be $4.50 and you didn’t shell out the extra bucks unless it was a band you knew about and they had a track record. For a first album it had the hits “Does Anyone Know What Time It Is”, “Beginnings”, “Questions 67 and 68” and their version of the Spenser Davis hit “I’m A Man.” Again four hits off a debut album but also the chances they took. Listen to “Free Form Guitar” and you can understand why Hendrix said of Kath “He’s the best guitarist in the universe.” It was the first time I ever heard a feedback driven solo played for over 6 minutes on an album where it was just guitar, no vocals, no drums, no nothing but pure driven guitar. I’m sure Hendrix could play what Kath did on that track but no one had the courage at the time to put it on an album just as it was.
So what do they do for an encore, they put out Chicago II, another double album with 25 tracks, are you kidding me 25 tracks! It produced three hits with “Make Me Smile”, “Colour My World”, and “25 or 6 to 4” but again they took chances with songs like “It Better End Soon” which was in four parts (“1st Movement”, “2nd Movement”, “3rd Movement”, “4th Movement”) and each part was a different style song, I mean who did this.
The way they made their first couple of albums with tracks like “It Better End Soon”, they showed the music world they didn’t care, they were going to make albums they wanted to do and I sense they knew the audience would find them. You have to remember this time in history we were just coming out of the 60’s with the turbulence that ended the decade, Vietnam was raging, Kent State happened that May and kids (and I include myself at the time) were looking for outlets of change and that included music. We were more inclined light up a fat one and to listen to something that was different and off the wall. Not like the structured formula driven music that was coming down the pike. Chicago was giving us rock, blues, funk and jazz all on one album, sometimes in one song done in four parts!
Does that sound like elevator music?
From the end of 1969 to 1973 they pumped out six albums while touring around the world including their first single album, Chicago V which included what I believe to be one of the best songs ever recorded “Dialogue Parts 1 and 2”. “Dialogue” is an eye opener. It’s two young people talking with different viewpoints, Kath’s lyrics talk about the Vietnam war, starvation, and repression happening in the country while Cetera sings about how everything is fine.
One of the last lines between the two of them in the song goes; (Kath) “Thank you for this talk you know you really eased my mind. I was troubled by the shapes of things to come.” (Cetera) “Well, if you had my outlook, your feelings would be numb. You’d always think that everything was fine”. It’s amazing to me over 50 years later and issues they were talking about still resonate.
For me, Chicago started to ease out of my musical focus around 1973-74 when the band seemed to change from the bluesy rock, funk fusion band to a “soft rock” version of the band with Peter Cetera seemingly dominating the songs being released. At the time some of the things I was listening to was Mott – Mott The Hoople, Aladdin Sane – Bowie, House Of The Holy – Led Zepplein, and of course Dark Side Of The Moon – Pink Floyd. Songs released by Chicago like “Just You “N” Me” or “(I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long” just wasn’t going to do it for me.
By the time they got to their David Foster era (shudder…) I was gone, I mean I didn’t even listen to the old stuff I really liked at the time. I think at that moment I just figured if this was the track they were following it wasn’t worth my time to keep listening too, even their first albums. It was almost like an abandonment issue with me. At the time new and exciting music was coming out every week and a huge part of my income it seemed was spent each week at Bandstand Records, The Shoppe or Record Exchange picking that new music up and with each passing year, Chicago was getting farther and farther in my rear-view mirror.
When Terry Kath died in 1978 I had already moved on but I remember thinking what a waste. Not only about his death but his talent in the band. This was a guy like I said earlier that Hendrix gave props too but his voice was the definition of “blue eyed soul”. He could rock it out and still sound like Ray Charles and with the direction that band took in those last few years of his life he was wasted in it.
In an interview with Classic Rock magazine in 2023 Robert Lamm stated “Had Terry survived and been a part of Chicago as it went into the 1980s, this band’s history would have been very different, Terry would have would have opposed the balladic direction that we were sucked into. He’d put a stop to that, or he’d have left the band.”
I believe some part of that is true but I think Kath was already against the direction the band was going and his part in it and that led to the drug and alcohol abuse but I think if he would have survived, he would have left the band and gone back to the blues rock style that fit him better.
Going back to the beginning of the story and how my friend was busting my chops about listening to elevator music I thought I would do a little experiment. I asked the “Alexa” device in my office to “play some music from the band Chicago.” I can see why people now consider this “elevator music”. The first six songs it played were “You’re the Inspiration”, “(I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long”, “If You Leave Me Now”, “Baby, What a Big Surprise”, “Hard to Say I’m Sorry’, “Hard Habit to Break” before finally hearing a song worth listening to, “Beginnings”.
As I kept saying “Alexa next song” all I kept thinking is no wonder people don’t know the real band Chicago.
Well off to the dentist where I’ll probably hear some Chicago…..
